III. His love to the people was evident in serving them in a public capacity many years, at his own cost, and that as a nursing father to the church of Christ.

IV. He loved the true Christian religion, and the pure worship of God, and cherished as in his bosom, all godly ministers and Christians. He was exact in his practice of piety, in his person and family, all his life. In a word, he lived desired, and died lamented by all good men."

This is very high commendation from one who was accustomed to follow Courts and weigh men and character. It shows Mr. Dudley to have been an excellent man, and judge, who loved the people, which regard was ardently responded to by them.

"The

Cotton Mather, writing in the 17th century says, Deputy-governor, Thomas Dudley, Esq., was a gentleman, whose natural and acquired abilities joined with his excellent moral qualities, entitled him to all the great respects with which his country on all opportunities treated him. Mag. Chri. A. M. 68. His wisdom in managing the most weighty and thorny affairs was often signalized, his justice was a perpetual terror to evil doers."

Ib 122. His courage procured his being the first Major General. Hutchinson says, "Mr. Dudley died greatly lamented July 31, 1653, being a principal founder of the Colony, and having recommended himself by great firmness and fidelity in the discharge of his trust. Vol. 1. p. 183. Samuel Drake says in the Ilis. of Boston, "That Mr. Dudley" was one of the most energetic and active men who had ever lived in the Colony. His firmness was fully equal to his fidelity; and though he was highly intolerant according to modern ideas, yet his integrity and honesty of purpose in carrying out that which he conceived to be the true interest of the people, will never be questioned, by those who have attended at all to his character.

John G. Palfrey says of him, "His well known capacity, experience and scrupulous fidelity to every trust made

him an object of implicit respect. His integrity was unimpeachable; his superiority to influences of human blame or favor was above question; the fear of God was an everpresent and deciding motive to him, no man in public action had a more single eye to the public welfare. Vol. 2, p. 411. Such men are the exceeding need of our own

times.

Dr. Holmes says of Governor Dudley, "With strong passions he was still placable and generous.'

We say that God never made a great man without strong passions. They lie at the foundation with intellectual and moral force to control them. All these Mr. Dudley had in noble equipoise and harmony in his constitution.

The history of Massachusetts the world knows by heart, but it has not taken note as it ought to have done of all the men who contributed to that wonderful moral and intellectual force at the very start, which has given her the lead in the sisterhood of states, and won the admiration of the whole world. Every beginning is difficult. "The beginning is half the battle" said Julius Ceasar.

There seems to be abundant reason for the opinion that Thomas Dudley was not intolerent in excess of his age. That he was sober and in earnest as Cromwell and Milton were, there can be no doubt. The strong testimony to his faithful discharge of trusts, to his inherent love of justice, to his obedience to the voice of conscience to duty, to his love of the people and their regard for him, even in old age, presents such a round, complete character that all detractors assail it in vain. And a mere indolent and wicked fashion of traducing such grand historic characters will sink and fade before the sunlight of truth, and the writers themselves suffer the impeachment which they merit.

We read in his epitaph of his great knowledge and great powers and at last that he was the sturdiest support and ornament of New England. Let not the land once proud

of him insult his memory. Let us praise famous men saith the wise son of Sirach "The Lord hath wrought great glory by them through his great power from the beginning. Men giving counsel by their understanding, and declaring prophecies; leaders of the people by their counsels, wise and eloquent in their instructions." Such was Governor Thomas Dudley.

He did his great life work nobly, he never thought of himself. All writers whose testimony is of value agree that his love of justice, his integrity, his obedience to conviction were supreme.

Neither pictures, statues or biography of himself were left; he was careless of either the praise or blame of posterity. He sought only the approval of Heaven and his own conscience. The modern self-seeking in office, the appropriation of public trusts from the people to personal uses and private emolument, would have received his utter detestation and profound abhorrence, as they deserve to do.

New England has produced many great and heroic men in public life, illustrious in their generations and immortal in her annals, and let us never forget that she began with the best and truest of them, and may their great example never cease to guide her unmeasured future in the ways of justice and the paths of peace.

It remains for us, his posterity, to dedicate our lives and ourselves anew to the great fundamental principles for which he struggled and suffered. He had faults, we know it, he knew it; but they are a few unrejoicing indiscretions caught up from a whole prairie harvest of righteous achievement.

"No heart have we to hear the discord and the staining,
We own our debt (to him) uncancelled by his failings."

It remains for us to see to it that the healthful influence of this illustrious and heroic life is no longer obstructed

and obscured. We owe this to him, to ourselves and to mankind. Pictures and busts of his peers and associates adorn our halls and public places at the capitol of the republic and at home, and impress and enforce the influence and character of those worthy men upon the minds and hearts of successive generations. It is a noble work. The true wealth of a nation, and most of its history are in its great men living, and its mighty dead, who never die but forever speak to us.

If it be said that the features of Governor Thomas Dudley are unknown to us, it may be said in reply that his character is known or may be known to us though we have to press through noxious weeds far back to find it as it was in fact. Surely the greatest triumph of art is to present the character, the life. Let him be idealized, let skill and genius do its utmost to combine and present in form and color, justice and mercy sweetly blended, the earnest, it may be profound Christian scholar, the man of God; the man of conscience with a face furrowed by care and suffering, a countenance firm but benignant, with strong deep eyes full of love for men, but first and foremost for his own flock, over which God hath made him Shepherd, Counsellor and Guide.

For this soul, pure like snow and chaste like ice, "Somewhere waiting for its birth a shaft is in the stone.' The tardy years will bring it forth; let it rest on the eternal granite, firm as his character; let the whitest marble earth has to show be chiseled tenderly and truly to express the noblest and best of human life, intellect and heart, for “An honest man is the noblest work of God."

The original Governor Thomas Dudley Family Association then adjourned sine die. The next annual reunion will be held by the Association as incorporated.

home of the Dudleys.

HISTORIC CHURCH RUINED BY THE FIRE DEMON, WHERE STERN old GOVERNOR DUDLEY LIVED AND DIED. CHURCH BUILDING ERECTED IN 1820 AND HAS NEVER BEFORE MET A MISHAP. WILL NOT BE REBUILT.

Shortly after noon on Saturday, Jan. 13, 1894, the Universalist church on Guild Row was discovered to be on fire and before the blaze could be extinguished the edifice was practically in ruins. It was gutted and the roof had fallen in. The walls and steeple did not fall but are beyond repair. It was a wooden building with a slate roof and notwithstanding the bitter cold the firemen did good work. When the roof fell several of the firemen were caught under it but escaped with a few minor cuts and bruises. The fire doubtless caught from a fire built around the water to thaw it out. The history of the church is easily written. The land now estimated to be worth $100,000 was purchased in 1820 for $1000, and is the portion of the estate of old Governor Dudley on which stood his dwelling house or, as it was called in those days, his mansion. Beneath the meeting house now is his old well and when the excavation was made for the cellar his old wine vault was unearthed in which were liquors that had lain buried for forty-five years.

Drake's history of Roxbury says: "1820-1 is a marked year in the history of religious opinions in this town, for it is the date of the formation of two parishes in Roxbury, the Baptist and the Universalist, both at that time considered heretical, and both largely made up of seceders from the First Church, then the only religious organization east of Jamaica Plain. The first Universalist sermon ever heard in Roxbury was delivered in the First Church, with Dr. Porter's permission, by Elhanan Winchester, in 1798. Twenty years later, Rev. Hosea Ballou began a course of Sunday evening lectures in Roxbury, assisted on alternate weeks by Rev. Paul Dean. These, as well as the business meetings of the parish, were held in the Town Hall until the completion of the church edifice.

The first Universalist society in Roxbury was incorporated Feb. 24, 1820, on the petition of Samuel Parker, William Hanna